Christa McAuliffe

[Angel37]

I'm doing a biography on her. And it's really got me depressed and thinking about how fragile life really is....I mean she got chosen out of thousands to do something she loved and she died for it...how many of us could do that? Don't know what I'm talking about? Does the name Spaceship Challenger ring a bell?
Just out of curiosity do any of our older members remember the incident? My mom was a teacher when this happened one year before I was born. In fact, she's the one who suggested I do the biography on her. Could one of our older members describe how the mood was during that time? Their reaction?
<3 Angel

[Fsiphskilm]

Which ultim

[Rev. Doc]

I remember I had just come into my Greek class in Seminary and the professor was late. When he came in he announced that the accident had occured. It was definately a shock and we had prayer for the members of the family. After classes were over for the day I went home and watched the coverage on the news a little while before going to work in the afternoon. It was one of those occurances that you somehow remember where you were when it happened. Ronald McNair who was the African American aboard that flight was from Lake City, South Carolina about 10 miles from where I currently live. There has been a memorial there for a long time and just recently they moved his body to a tomb at the location. Each year there is a candelight observance on the anniversary of the accident at the memorial. He left a legacy especially to the schoolchildren of this area that if you apply yourself and trust in the Lord anyone can reach their dreams.

[Mithrandir]

I was in reading class at the time. I wanted to "be an astonout when I grew up" during that point in my life, so needless to say it had a bit of a affect on me. It turns out my father (a teacher at the time) was actually in the early running for that program. How's *that* for an occurence to be thankful for failure?

[EireWolf]

The Challenger accident happened on my 10th birthday. I just remember walking into the TV room and my mom was sitting there crying as she watched the news.

[Ashley]

To make all of you guys feel old, my mom was pregnant with me when Challenger happened. She said she was on her way to nursing school and saw it on the news. My dad was working for NASA around that time, too. Lots of schools around here are named after the accident--Challenger Elementary, Challenger Memorial Park, etc.

Then again, I don't know I know of a family in Houston who WASN'T working for NASA at one point in time or another. We also knew the captain of the Columbia shuttle mission that ended on a similiar note not too long ago--he lived across from us and near Andrea Yates' house. O_o

[ShiroiHikari]

well, hmm...I would have been about 3 or 4 years old, so...I don't remember -_-

[ClosetOtaku]

I was a newly commissioned second lieutenant at a training session in Fort Lewis, Washington at the time. Our instructor came in and said something had happened to the shuttle, and we turned on a TV and saw congressmen speaking about it. But we had to get back to class, so I didn't see the footage until later on that evening.

I remember during lunch (we were on the west coast, and the accident happened around lunch time on the east coast) just driving around in my car, listening to the NPR coverage of the incident.

The only other time I recall being that shocked was 9/11. I remembered watching the drop tests and Columbia's first flight several years before when I was still in college. We all knew an accident would happen someday, but none of us thought it would be so soon.

By that evening, the coverage was on every major news channel. The footage ran over and over and over again. It was numbing.

Perhaps it is some indication of how much we've become desensitized to these kind of disasters when, over a decade later, Columbia was lost -- there didn't seem to be the same sense of pause in the nation's business when it happened. Then again, you have to remember where we were in 1986: the U.S. had emerged from a long economic slump, the mood was positive, Reagan was the Man. We were the Good Guys fighting the Evil Empire, and we were winning. The Challenger disaster reminded us we weren't bulletproof, that our technology had its limitations, that people still made mistakes of catastrophic proportions.

[Angel37]

My mother had been a teacher at the time, pregnant with me. Her class was scheduled to watch the lift off and have class from Christa McAuliffe in space. Needless to say, they were incredibly shocked by what they saw. My mom had to leave the school even, it was so shocking. Since I was little I had an intense love of the stars and, for a time, I desired to be an astronaut. Sometimes I wonder if she knew she would die. Thank you all for your contribtion and stories. I just love hearing them. I wish I could've been alive for this, if only to remember. Then again I have 9/11 and the Columbia to remember. The Columbia shook me up. I remember how you could see the launch from my old house in Lakeland and my mom got a picture of the Columbia's last launch. When I heard it was destroyed, I was devestated. My heart lies in space and hearing of things like this really sadden me.
<3 Angel